Tomorrow I will introduce an Ordinance to change the Portland City Code that manages private pay-to-park and non-pay parking facilities.

There are over 150 private parking lots in the city, but there are two that may catch you off guard. Thanks to KATU’s investigative reporting, constituent complaints, and my own personal experience, we learned that people were getting tickets because they were parking on what looked like public streets – but were in fact private parking areas.

The Code change explicitly allows the City to require that private parking lot owners offer better signage so motorists are not caught off-guard. The Code also adds new reporting requirements which will monitor ticketing practices and how complaints are handled.

These changes will better protect consumers who were accidentally parking illegally. Nobody likes to get a parking ticket (me included!) – so we want to make sure that the rules are clear and fairly applied across the city.